New Delhi: The Gujarat high court on Tuesday ruled that citizens have the right to know the rules which give the state police powers to grant or deny permission to hold protests or rallies.
The court passed the order in a case filed by a woman who challenged the decision by the state police to reject her application under the Right to Information (RTI) Act to publish these rules.
According to Bar and Bench, the order passed by the single-judge bench of Justice Biren Vaishnav said that non-publication of such rules would “kill and smother the very purpose” of the RTI Act – to promote transparency in democracy.
“Democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed,” the order says.
What was the case?
The petitioner, Swati Goswami, planned to organise a ‘peaceful rally’ against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on December 29, 2019. But on December 28, she was informed by the police that permission was denied to hold the rally “on grounds of law and order as well as traffic congestion it could cause”. According to Bar and Bench, she nevertheless proceeded to hold the assembly and was detained for a few hours.
While Goswami did not challenge the denial, she filed an RTI application seeking access to all rules, regulations, instructions, manuals and records held by the state or under its control or used by its employees for discharging its functions. But the request was rejected by the Crime Branch. She then moved the HC challenging this rejection.
What did the court say?
According to Bar and Bench, the petitioner argued that the failure to publish the rules by which the police grant or deny permissions amounted to “illegality of executive action, violation of democracy, rule of law and natural justice and infringement of her rights of free speech and expression and assembly enshrined in Article 19 of the Constitution and also her right to life under Article 21”.
The state government argued that the petitioner is not entitled to such information and that denying permission for a political rally does not infringe on her fundamental rights.
The court noted that there needs to be a ‘harmonisation’ of conflicting interests to ensure that the paramountcy of the democratic ideal survives.
“This, in as much as, when revelation of information in actual practice is likely to conflict with other public interest including efficient operations of the government optimum use of limited fiscal resources and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information certain information sought for by the citizen who desire to have it must be provided,” the bench said.
It rejected the government’s argument that the information need not be provided, which the court said, would kill and smother the very purpose of the RTI Act.
The court said the state has a legal duty to publish the information that was sought and that the petitioner is “entitled to know the rules framed under Section 33 of the Gujarat Police Act, so as to know the reasons for denial of permission”, it said.
Without this knowledge, the petitioner will not be able to challenge the denial of permission “which will be a direct infringement of her fundamental right and a statutory right to know and access the law of the land which she violated”, the court said, according to Bar and Bench.
The court directed the police to publish all the rules and orders framed under Section 33 of the Gujarat Police Act on the website.